1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to manufacturing and, more particularly, to manufacturing preforms.
2. Description of Related Art
Optical fiber preforms possess properties that determine the characteristics of optical fibers that are eventually drawn from those preforms. The quality of an optical fiber correlates with the quality of materials that are used in manufacturing the preform from which the optical fiber is drawn. As one can imagine, using higher-quality starting materials results in increased costs. In view of this, there are ongoing efforts to reduce the manufacturing costs of the preforms, and concurrently to improve the quality of the preforms.